


The Deal

by Queenie18



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Alec Lightwood Dies, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dead Alec Lightwood, Grief/Mourning, Grown up Max Lightwood-Bane, Hurt No Comfort, Immortal Magnus Bane, M/M, Mortality, Post-Season/Series 03, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24057898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queenie18/pseuds/Queenie18
Summary: As he sunk into that peaceful darkness, he imagined that his life hadn’t been so bad after all.—Or a canon divergence where Magnus never found out why Alec broke up with him and never saw him again.
Relationships: Magnus Bane & Max Lightwood-Bane, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 22
Kudos: 197





	The Deal

Alec Lightwood felt so tired.

He smiled down at the sight of Angelica in his arms, the baby’s fingers curled around his thumb as he rocked his granddaughter. Max was standing next to him, a careful, small but grateful smile on his face as he watched them.

“She’s beautiful.” Alec commented, admiring her pale pink scales across her cheek. “I’m so happy for you.”

Max tilted his head down. “Thank you dad. I knew you’d love her.”

Alec scoffed and held her out for his son to take again, ignoring how his muscles strained at the action. “I’d love anyone you bring home. Anyone except that awful Seelie, what was her name? Cara, Carine?”

“Carina.” Max replied, amused. “And she wasn’t that bad.”

Alec rolled his eyes and shuffled back into the mattress. “She was dreadful. Anyone who insults your mark doesn’t deserve you.”

Max laughed and rocked his daughter, and a warmth spread through Alec, watching how adoring his son looked in parenthood, his smile wider than it had ever been. It settled something inside of him, as though he had finally done a good job. He could rest now.

“I’m proud of you.” Alec whispered, cracking a smile when his son stared at him with wide eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m okay.”

“Dad.” Max whimpered, leaning forward. “Why does this sound like a goodbye?”

Alec snorted and winced when a pain echoed through him. “Ah, Max, I’m not getting any younger.”

“You’re 82.” Max said. “You’ll survive.”

Alec sighed and nodded faintly, staring at how perfect the picture was in front of him. His son, his love of his life cradling his granddaughter in his arms. And whilst an old pain of not having Magnus here was always present, Alec never regretted anything in his life.

“Just, don’t cry about me too much.” Alec grumbled, blinking. “I raised you to be better than that.”

Max made a pained sound and sat down in the bed next to him, Alec realising he was trembling. “You can’t go yet, Dad. I’m not ready. No one of us are.”

“I’m mortal and an old man.” Alec reminded him, lifting a hand to pat his son’s arm. “It’s about time I met with my family again, isn’t it?”

Max wobbled his lip and Alec watched as a single tear broke free, trailing down the blue of his cheek. He wanted to rub it away, wanted to hold his son and mummer old declarations of love in his ear again as he did when Max was a child.

But alas, he was too weak to even move now.

“Did you know that I once thought I would never be happy again?” Alec said, almost to himself. “I had done something stupid, and broke my heart in the process even if I was saving someone else.”

Max smiled slightly. “Magnus Bane, right?”

Alec raised a questioning eyebrow. “Should I be concerned about how you know about him?”

Max rolled his eyes, even as he cried and let out a wet laugh. “You were rubbish at hiding photos of him, or the Lightwood family ring. Aunt Izzy told me about him when I asked her.” Max sighed and looked at Alec with a warm sort of concern and sympathy. “She said you loved him.”

“I did.” Alec replied, smiling despite it all. “I would say I loved him too much.”

Max shuffled on the bed and readjusted the pillows as Alec blinked away the feeling of tiredness spreading. Not yet. “What happened?”

Alec hummed. “I made a deal so I would break up with him, to bring back his happiness.”

“But you sold your own in the process.”

Alec tilted his head and said nothing at first. For many months after the breakup, he felt raw, broken and useless - living life through a daze. It was only after he had found Max on his doorstep, crying and so beautiful in his youth that he felt the flicker of being alive again. Max reminded him what it was like to live, to love, to nurture again and Alec had a purpose in his life that had been lost after Magnus.

“I thought so.” Alec mused to himself, then looked up at the sad gaze of his son. “Until I found you.”

Alec fumbled until he grasped his son’s leg, cherishing the warmth and strength of it, a sign that he had done his job well, he had succeeded. “You’re my happiness, Max. The Clave, my job, everything is nothing compared to you. It’s been an honour to be your father.”

Max let out a sob and held Angelica closer to him as Alec smiled tiredly, feeling woozy and drained. 

“It’s been my honour to your son.” Max cried.

Alec hummed a happy breath and closed his eyes. “I love you, Max Lightwood.”

Max leant down and kissed his forehead, the warmth of his breath soothing him as he sunk deeper. “I love you too, Daddy.”

Alec tried to smile but felt as though he failed. As he sunk into that peaceful darkness, he imagined that his life hadn’t been so bad after all.

  
—

  
Magnus was sat on his balcony in his flat in London when the doorbell went.

Raising an eyebrow, he walked to toward his door. He hadn’t planned for any visitors, nor had Cat mentioned she was coming. He hoped it wasn’t some nosey client, he wasn’t prepared for any of them today.

He couldn’t explain it, but something was different today. And he didn’t like it.

When he opened the door, he was greeted to the sight of a younger warlock. The man looked to be in his early twenties, with a mop of brown hair and hazel eyes, eyes that looked startling like Alexa-Alec’s and that unnerved him. He was dressed in a simple white shirt and black jeans - a chain around his neck. The man held himself with a sort of bashful caution, staring at Magnus with something like careful wonder. 

“Magnus Bane?” The man asked, holding a hand out.

Magnus tilted his head in question but shook his hand. “Yes. Who are you?”

The younger warlock rubbed his neck and smiled with a crooked smile. Magnus was once again hit with memories of a similar smile, belonging to a Shadowhunter he had loved once, and who had destroyed him.

Then his eyes caught sight of something resting on the man’s chest - a silver ring with a large ‘L’ carved into it amongst symbols of flames. Magnus felt his breath stop momentarily, feeling as though he recognised that ring somewhere.

“Who are you?” He asked again, harsher and colder when the man winced, dropping his hand.

“My name is Max Lightwood.” The man, no Max, said and gestured widely. “Sorry if I’m imposing.”

Max narrowed his eyes. “You’re a warlock.”

Max nodded and smiled grimly. “I am. My father adopted me when he found me on the steps of the institute.”

Magnus had dawning understanding where this going, and felt his skin chill as his heart stopped. Max, with beautiful hazel eyes, a crooked smile and a nervous habit that he would of gained from someone close to him. Someone who adopted him.

Magnus feared where this conversation was headed.

“Your father?” He said anyways.

Max winced and fiddled with the ring on the chain. “Yes. Alexander Lightwood, the Consul of the Clave.”

Magnus let out a shaken breath. Alec had become Consul after everything had happened. He had a son, a life, a job beyond his life with Magnus. It hurt him more than it should of. He thought he was over the pain caused by Alec but it seemed he may never be.

After all this time, Magnus still considered Alec his _‘one’._

“What do you want?” Magnus snarled.

Max shot him an angered look. “This is a conversation that is better to be sat down with.”

Magnus scoffed and tilted his hip as he placed his hand in it. “What conversation? I’m done with any Lightwoods.”

Max rolled his eyes and flushed with a blush as he glared at Magnus. “Even a fellow downworlder?” Then he learnt closer. “If you won’t listen to me then fine, I’ll just come out and say it.”

Magnus blinked and stepped back when the warlock began to tremble. There was an emptiness in head, a warning flaring up inside.

Max sighed and lost all the tension in his body. “My dad died last night. He was 82.”

Magnus stumbled and held onto the counter with trembling hands as the words became real. Alec with his innocence, his eagerness and love that had both repaired and destroyed him - gone. Magnus might have started to cry, to mourn or maybe he did nothing at all as Max came forward and dragged him to the sofa.

Dead. He was dead.

No. No. No. No.

He was never supposed to die. 

“How?” Magnus chocked out when they were both sitting.

Max curled inwards as he fingered the ring, the Lightwood family ring, in an obvious nervous habit. “He was happy, if that’s what you’re asking. I was there with Angelica, my daughter, when he went. He was talking about you.”

Magnus sucked in a breath. After their breakup, he felt as close to death as he had ever been. When his magic came back, his immortality, he ran instead of facing his problems and never talked to any of the Lightwoods again. He hadn’t stepped foot in New York since.

“He broke up with me.” Magnus supplied, which was weak excuse in his own ears.

Max nodded in agreement. “I don’t know a lot, no one really talks about his life before me. He still has photos of you, you know. A lot of them, hidden under his bed. Aunt Izzy was the one who first told me about you.”

Magnus’ head was silent, void of noise, void of anything but Alec and the memories they shared. How happy Magnus had been, no matter how brief. How Magnus had thought he was the one to repair the damage in his heart. 

“You lost your happiness, he said?” Max asked in an almost question, looking up at him. “Before the breakup, that was?”

Magnus flinched as he remembered what Max was probably referring to. “He was probably talking about my magic. I lost it, trying to save Jace.”

Max let out a chocked noise and suddenly he was crying into his hands, looking so distraught that Magnus felt his blood chill. There was sudden rawness to it, as the younger man rocked himself back and forth - mumbling to himself. Suddenly Magnus feared whatever the man was really here for - if he reacted so horribly to his lost immortality, an old scar he didn’t enjoy reflecting on.

“He’s an idiot. Oh, dad, you’re so stupid.” Max mumbled into his palms. He looked up at Magnus with cautious concern and smiled wobbly. “The breakup, it was to bring back your happiness. There- there was a deal, I don’t know with who. But he said it was to bring your happiness back. I, I guess it was to bring back your magic.”

Max laughed and looked at the skyline. “My dad never wanted to breakup with you. That was just the terms of the deal.”

Magnus heaved an unsteady breath and tried to stop the tears from threatening to fall. After all this time, after the curses of how selfish he was, how absolutely wrong he was about Alec - the Shadowhunter was just the most selfless person he had met. And that was all he had ever been. Loyal, protective and selfless in every sense.

And he was dead.

Magnus let a single tear fall. He was never going to see him, to shout or kiss him, again. All because he had run away from the heartbreak instead of facing it all.

Max turned to face him and reached out to pull the necklace holding the ring over his head. He briefly smiled down at it, with that perfectly crooked smile and held it out to Magnus with shaking hands.

“This ring is yours.” Max admitted. “He hid it with the photos of you.” Max placed it carefully in Magnus’ sweating palm. “Grandma said he asked for it, for you.”

Magnus wondered if Alexander Lightwood would ever stop breaking his heart. The Lightwood family ring was in his hand, warm where it had rested against Max’s chest. And after all these years, Alec had wanted Magnus to marry him. And he had cherished that ring, kept it - as though he still wanted to marry Magnus.

“He’s dead.” Magnus whispered to himself. “He’s gone and I had hated and loved him all this time.”

Max smiled lightly. “All he wanted was for you to be happy.”

Magnus pulled the necklace around his neck, snapping his fingers to rid all the other necklaces until it stood out against the black of his shirt. There was sense of belonging in him, a sense of rightness. Alec Lightwood has somehow made him find peace, even when he wasn’t here. And it felt as if it was only yesterday when he watched the man walk down the aisle to kiss him amongst all those senior Shadowhunters. 

Alec Lightwood would always continue to surprise him.

“Would you like to stay?” Magnus asked, looking at Max with a sense of bubbling hope. “You can bring your daughter if you want?”

Max looked at him as though he understood. He grinned and reached out to grasp Magnus’ hand, his skin rough and calloused like Alec’s, even if his hand was smaller. “I think that’s what Dad would have wanted.” He tilted his head down in a bashful action. “I’d love to.”

Magnus squeezed his hand lightly in return.

Someday, he would be angry at Alexander, at what he had sacrificed because he never thought of himself as enough.

And someday, he would mourn him, maybe visit where he rested in death.

But for now, Magnus only wanted to get to know his son, and remember the times where he had unashamedly loved his Shadowhunter.

It was enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry. I don’t even know why I wrote this.
> 
> I’m also srry for not updating my other works. I’m working through a writer’s block which apparently is being solved by angst?
> 
> Sigh.


End file.
